[This information comes directly form the Atomic Learning website.] The most important phase of production is pre-production.
Some people don’t want to hear that truth. Maybe you’re one of them! If you heed that advice, however, you’ll be following in the footsteps of all the successful television and motion picture directors in the business. Unless you’re taping a “news as it happens” story, you should have a very good idea of what your finished program will look like before you take out the camera.
What’s it for?
People will be curious about why you’re making a video, especially if you ask them to participate in it! You should be able to answer the question, “so what’s it for?” Remember, “just for fun” is a fine reason! If you’ve got more specific goals (and you probably will) you should list them. Consider your program from the point of view of your intended audience. What do you want them to gain from watching your program? What should they learn, feel, think, understand, or do?
Who’s going to watch it?
You need to have an idea of who your audience will be. Will they be high school students, senior citizens, parent groups, local citizens, kindergarteners, medical doctors, college students, family members or any other group you can identify? It’s important to know the general level of sophistication of your audience and their level of prior knowledge about the subject matter.
When I taught in a high school, my video journalism class produced a magazine style program of short feature stories about our school and the community. It was shown on the local cable access station, which means our audience included anyone in the local area with cable TV. Information my students took for granted wasn’t necessarily common knowledge in the community. I had to remind them that non-students might not know what DECA stands for (Distributive Education Clubs of America) or who Mr. Force is (former principal). They needed to explain such things to the audience when they made reference to them in a story.
Now here’s your local forecast
The local forecast is the part of the weather report that we’re most interested in. It affects us directly, but it’s something the network and national cable outfits don’t provide much detail about. Stories about people, places, issues or events in your local school or community don’t get much attention from commercial television either. You won’t find any tapes or DVDs about local interest topics at the video store. But people are interested in these things! There just aren’t enough of them to make it profitable for the pros to cover. That can be where you come in. A local take on a national or global story can also give it local appeal. What’s the situation here? What do local people think about it?
Broadcast and cable television networks do a good job catering to mass audiences. However, they’re not as likely to do a video about the high school marching band’s trip to Pasadena for an appearance in the Rose Bowl Parade.
That sounds doable!
As was mentioned earlier, keep your project small enough to accomplish with the resources you have available. You can always produce a more ambitious sequel! You might want to rethink that story about snowboarding in the Himalayas, unless your location expense budget is a tad larger than mine.
Consider the timelines of your story. That would include the amount of time you have available to spend and the time factors of your story’s subject. You might really want to do a story about the local football team, but if they don’t start practice for two more months it might be impossible to get the action shots you need.
Do your research
When doing a documentary, biography or other non-fiction story, find out as much as you can about your subject during the planning stage. Working in these formats is like doing an in-depth news story. You need to get and provide answers to the who, what, when, where, why, and how questions. The more answers you have before shooting, the better you’ll be able to plan your production. Visit the locations of importance to your story. Talk to the people involved. You may discover a better story lurking about than the one you had originally envisioned.
Call me Ishmael
The classic novel Moby Dick was written as a narrative told by the only survivor of an ill-fated whaling voyage, an interesting fellow known as Ishmael. The Illustrated Classics comic book version takes a bit different approach to the story. You’ll need to decide how you want to approach the stories you tell with video.
Treatments
A treatment is a brief explanation of what your program is all about and how you intend to tell the story. Anyone who reads your treatment should walk away with a clear picture of how your story will unfold. There are usually several ways you can approach the same topic. In the field of news reporting, a treatment is sometimes referred to as a story angle or slant. One treatment decision to make is the story’s format. Within each format there are other choices.
If you’re doing some sort of documentary, will the story be told from the point of view of an observer or a participant? Will there be an off-camera narrator or an on-camera reporter? Will there be a mix of both? If you interview people for the story, will the interviewer be shown asking questions on camera or will you just use the answers in your edited story? If you’re doing a work of fiction, will there be on-camera dialog from your actors? Will the story and dialog be read by an off-camera storyteller as the actors pantomime the action? Will there be a mix of the two, like the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon adventures?
Let’s take the topic of peer pressure. There are many formats to choose from, and each could have multiple approaches. Here are a few quick partial treatment ideas. Actual full treatments would need further explanation. [As you read these treatment ideas, think of your movie's topic and imagine which treatment you would like to employ when you make your movie.]
Informational
Treatment 1
This program will define what peer pressure is and give examples of how teenagers are subjected to it. An off-camera narrator will give a definition of peer pressure and describe various circumstances in which it can occur. Video of teenagers will be used to illustrate each occurrence cited.
Treatment 2
This program will show the many circumstances in which peer pressure can affect the behavior of teenage girls. The story will center on the experiences of five teenage girls who have been identified for the story. Each girl will talk about one form of peer pressure that has affected her behavior in a voice over. Video will show that girl interacting with her peers.
Investigative report
National reports have indicated that there is peer pressure for high school girls not to get good grades or appear too smart. This story will investigate if girls at our school feel this type of pressure, and if so, why?
Positive peer pressure can result from being involved in school activities and volunteer groups. What are the groups at our school that exert positive peer pressure?
Event
A school assembly will be held on November 9th to encourage students to resist peer pressure to become involved in negative activities. This story will take excerpts from the presentation and get the reaction from students and faculty as to the effectiveness of the message.
Historical
Using old photos (school yearbook and others), video (past editions of the school video yearbook), and interviews with people of various ages, this program will examine how peer pressure has always been a part of school life.
Interview
A school guidance counselor talks about peer pressure with a student interviewer. The video will cutaway to shots of kids exhibiting behaviors resulting from peer pressure: smoking, clothing styles, etc.
Fiction: drama
This video will tell the story of Jenny, a school athlete who gets kicked off the team, loses her drivers license, etc. because she gave in to peer pressure to attend a party where there was alcohol being consumed.
Music video
Our original rap song, You Can’t Pressure Me!, will be used as the backing soundtrack. Various kids, teachers, administrators, and others will each sing a line from the song. They will be taped at various locations around the school and community.
Promotional / Motivational
This will be a one-minute public service announcement about the positive influence of the school’s Peer Helper program. It will feature current peer helpers giving one-sentence reasons why they joined, and what they think the organization has done for them and other students.
Instructional
This video will demonstrate techniques middle school students can use to counter negative peer pressure. A series of vignettes will depict students using these techniques in specific situations.
Amazing Digital Storytelling site
http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/
Story Planning
[This information comes directly form the Atomic Learning website.]The most important phase of production is pre-production.
- Some people don’t want to hear that truth. Maybe you’re one of them! If you heed that advice, however, you’ll be following in the footsteps of all the successful television and motion picture directors in the business. Unless you’re taping a “news as it happens” story, you should have a very good idea of what your finished program will look like before you take out the camera.
What’s it for?- People will be curious about why you’re making a video, especially if you ask them to participate in it! You should be able to answer the question, “so what’s it for?” Remember, “just for fun” is a fine reason! If you’ve got more specific goals (and you probably will) you should list them. Consider your program from the point of view of your intended audience. What do you want them to gain from watching your program? What should they learn, feel, think, understand, or do?
Who’s going to watch it?- You need to have an idea of who your audience will be. Will they be high school students, senior citizens, parent groups, local citizens, kindergarteners, medical doctors, college students, family members or any other group you can identify? It’s important to know the general level of sophistication of your audience and their level of prior knowledge about the subject matter.
- When I taught in a high school, my video journalism class produced a magazine style program of short feature stories about our school and the community. It was shown on the local cable access station, which means our audience included anyone in the local area with cable TV. Information my students took for granted wasn’t necessarily common knowledge in the community. I had to remind them that non-students might not know what DECA stands for (Distributive Education Clubs of America) or who Mr. Force is (former principal). They needed to explain such things to the audience when they made reference to them in a story.
Now here’s your local forecast- The local forecast is the part of the weather report that we’re most interested in. It affects us directly, but it’s something the network and national cable outfits don’t provide much detail about. Stories about people, places, issues or events in your local school or community don’t get much attention from commercial television either. You won’t find any tapes or DVDs about local interest topics at the video store. But people are interested in these things! There just aren’t enough of them to make it profitable for the pros to cover. That can be where you come in. A local take on a national or global story can also give it local appeal. What’s the situation here? What do local people think about it?
- Broadcast and cable television networks do a good job catering to mass audiences. However, they’re not as likely to do a video about the high school marching band’s trip to Pasadena for an appearance in the Rose Bowl Parade.
That sounds doable!- As was mentioned earlier, keep your project small enough to accomplish with the resources you have available. You can always produce a more ambitious sequel! You might want to rethink that story about snowboarding in the Himalayas, unless your location expense budget is a tad larger than mine.
- Consider the timelines of your story. That would include the amount of time you have available to spend and the time factors of your story’s subject. You might really want to do a story about the local football team, but if they don’t start practice for two more months it might be impossible to get the action shots you need.
Do your researchTreatments